The Trailokya Trilogy, Book One: The Shadow Soul

My gift to my fellow Wattpaders. The first part of the series will be here indefinitely. Also housing the companion here. Get book two, Burning Down for free on kindle until 9/10/18.
2015 Hollywood Book Festival Honorable Mention in Science Fiction...

Prologue

The veil, hiding what is beyond perceived reality, is the border of space and time, called the khajala. It is this veil which keeps life blind to the reality of its universe, until such a time the knowing takes hold . . .

At the dawn of existence, the universe was of thought and singular, a place named Nirvana. Nirvana was a world of technology beyond comprehension, where thought commanded reality, and was populated by beings unbound by flesh, atman of immense ascendancy called the Jñanasattva. Over the distance of years, thought became increasingly formed and the beings of Nirvana created two further planes, each infinitely vast and separate from the next, in which they could experience and play out their ideas. Time lengthened further and these new planes, the Astral and Avernus universes, which provided an unbounded existence in new resonances, were found wanting.

Adonai, King of Zion, and a Jñanasattva of Nirvana, ordered the creation of what he called Trailokya, a trinity among three further territories: Jahannam, Samsara and Zion. Trailokya would serve as home for the curious children of Nirvana, and each would be the life force living at the core of new beings called sattva, or the body kind. Jahannam was an echo of Zion, a dark mirror image, a grave and prison, while Samsara provided innumerable worlds floating in a sea of untapped potential. Grateful to their ruler for the gift that brought them such freedom, the first children of Nirvana populated Zion, and called one another duta. The duta were an ascending race that never died but instead re-formed themselves as their energies changed. Their favored form was that of a hairless primate, strong and tall, graced with elegant wings and the speed and potency of light. For them, Zion was made a boundless globe of land and sea beneath a blue sky, always stretching and growing into infinity, basking in the glow of a golden sun and awed by a silver moon and her stars. If ever they wished, they could return to the world that created them, as they were bound by no requirement or position.

Upon the center point of that sphere, the king made a mountain and on the mountain he made his citadel, the White City of Zion. A link between Zion and Nirvana was kept in the form of the Perpetual Light, a column of pure white light that blazed into the beyond and instilled sattva, atman, and their world with all that would ever be desired. Here, sattva lived in peace, where they slowly forgot the home they left behind, yet forever yearned for. Though their atman grew, their ascendancy was slow. It took many incarnations, and through this process some stagnated, others decayed in their appetites, and the remainder returned beyond the vale back home.

The peace lasted until the formation of sattva that the duta called souls. Souls were atman of lower resonance that never came to fruition in Nirvana, and required the spaces of Trailokya in which to grow. Their growth was slowest of all. By the resonance of their atman, such creatures were better suited to more physical teaching. Thus, they were given the spaces of Samsara, beyond the barrier realm of the Avernus and the mental plane of the Astral. From the port of Zion, they would interface with biological appliances on ether lines; this activity meant to heighten their resonance until they evolved into duta. The highest in resonance among these small sparks dominated their worlds, creating civilizations that echoed the home world. Among these souls were humans, a race that resembled the duta, but were small and wingless. There were taller human-like races, like the pale Aghartians and dark Cetians. There were the twin races of Grails: the Zeta being the taller and the Grey being the smaller. The bull-headed Hyadeans and the horse-bodied Orions. The half-snake Nagas, the half-goat Ikyls, and the half-fish Vetehinen. There were Oreiades almost identical to humans but for their dazzling large eyes and curious elemental-based variations. The giant Els, with their black orbs and massive muscular forms. The arborous race of Boarwellum. The scaly Drago. The fiery, crimson-skinned Jinn and their counterbeing, the water-dwelling Naiades. Last, the avian race of Aurai. Each of these crossed the khajala and filled their new worlds, and were followed closely by other souls, the flora and fauna that would live among them and under their protection.